translated from Spanish: Afghan women challenge Taliban by demanding their rights

Some Afghan women are beginning to challenge the Taliban over fears that the restrictions in place during their previous regime will be reimforced, with public protests demanding that the insurgents be included in the government they are about to form or their right to continue working. More and more images are of women holding up banners and raising anti-Taliban slogans across the country, a symbol of the resistance of journalists, activists and workers who oppose going back to that dark era of repression. A group of government office workers and activists took to the streets of Kabul to ask the Taliban movement for roles in the new Administration, as well as to keep their jobs in state offices, afghan channel Tolo reported today.” The people, the government and any official who will form a state in the future cannot ignore the women of Afghanistan. We will not give up our right to education, the right to work and our right to political and social participation,” activist Fariha Esar told the tv channel.The demonstrations have been reduced, but they are gaining strength as the days go by, with many recalling the Taliban regime between 1996 and 2001, when women could not work or go to school, and they were held inside their homes. However, the Taliban have now insistently assured that women will be able to continue with their lifestyles as they have done so far, returning to schools or their jobs within the limits set by Islam, but some workers, especially journalists, complain that in practice this is not being done.” I wanted to go back to work, but unfortunately (the Taliban) wouldn’t let me. They told me that the regime has changed and you can’t work,” tv presenter Shabnam Dawran said in a video widely released today, a complaint that contrasts with the image last Tuesday, two days after the takeover of Kabul, of a Tolo presenter interviewing a Taliban. The coordinator of the Committee to Protect Journalists for South Asia, Steven Butler, condemned the measures to “strip the public media of prominent news anchors, (which) is an ominous sign that the Taliban in Afghanistan have no intention of fulfilling their promise to respect women’s rights,” said the organization. The Taliban are also remembered for imposing a rigorous regime in which women were only allowed to leave home in the company of a man in the family or for imposing the use of the ‘burqa’, a situation that was improving with the fall of the insurgent regime in 2001 and which many now fear will be repeated.

Original source in Spanish